“I like to remember things my own way. How I remembered them, not necessarily the way they happened.” This quote by Fred Madison, played by Bill Pullman, from David Lynch’s Lost Highway stuck with me while shaping DMFAO Live at Ursa—an album built on memory, distortion, and reality-shifting.
-Tommy Crane

Tommy Crane (he/him) is a drummer and producer whose versatility has led him across a vast range of musical landscapes—from jazz to ambient, from rock to the avant-garde. Since moving from St. Louis to New York in 2001 to study at The New School, Crane has developed a reputation for innovation, blending improvisation with a love for ambient textures. Now based in Montreal, he has recorded and toured internationally with artists including Melissa Aldana, Joe Chambers, Martha Wainwright, David Binney, Aaron Parks’ Little Big, Unessential Oils, La Force, and the no-wave/jazz/electronica duo, Angell & Crane.

In 2017, Crane collaborated with visual artist/filmmaker extraordinaire, Tracy Maurice (Arcade Fire, Dana Michel) for Preservation, a live multimedia project commissioned by Lincoln Center, later released in 2019. His solo debut, We’re All Improvisers Now (2022), was described by Under the Radar as striking a balance between “crystalline, tranquil synths and propulsive, glitchy rhythms.” However, it was with 2024’s Dance Music For All Occasions (DMFAO) that Crane fully stepped into his own as a bandleader. A tribute to his late father, Nolan Earl Crane, and the mix or musical genres he loved. The album was praised by Bandcamp Daily as “so damn personable… a throwback to ’70s soul jazz with a contemporary twist, where the beat lights the path, and the melodies roll out casual as can be.”

The DMFAO project started as a studio recording in Montreal with a cast of stellar musicians, including percussionist Martin Ditcham (Talk Talk, Sade). But before the album was completed, Crane found himself with a rare opportunity. While on tour with Martha Wainwright, she offered him a residency at her intimate Montreal venue, Ursa. The four-month run (the band performing a couple times per month), Beyond Jazz, became a testing ground for new material and an evolving community space for spontaneous, genre-defying music.

Featuring a core band of saxophonists Charlotte Greve and Claire Devlin, keyboardist/vocalist Sarah Rossy, guitarist/co-producer Warren Spicer, bassists Jon Arseneau and Morgan Moore, Sergio D’isanto on percussion, and Crane on Drums, synthesizers, the residency quickly took on a life of its own. The intimate space created an atmosphere where the music felt alive, unrepeatable, and deeply connected to the moment.

“Recording Live at Ursa felt like stepping into another reality—and that’s exactly how the album sounds,” says Crane. He enlisted sound engineer Trevor Turple to shape the sonic landscape with an Eventide H3000, washing the group sound in a haze that blurred the lines between live performance and dream state. Thanks to Martha Wainwright and Nico Deslis, Each night was recorded, but rather than simply picking the “best takes,” Crane spent months reassembling fragments, warping and reshaping them into a fluid, surreal narrative.

“When I began seriously (or perhaps stupidly, haha) considering mixing these performances, one of my heroes, David Lynch, passed away. I actually wrote my college thesis on his use of sound in film. I was a jazz student, and my advisor wanted to fail me for it—but I was obsessed with how he manipulated sound to shape reality. That obsession came flooding back, and it changed how I approached this live album.” Crane met Lynch in person while on tour in Paris in the early 2000’s. “My good friend Leslie got me a ticket to a private book signing for my 25th birthday, haha, and I was able to meet him and have a small chat …there’s even a photo floating around to prove it where I’m wearing a very ridiculous flannel shirt! Before I left, I gave him a cheap ass burned cd of some of the music I had written that was inspired by his work – unfortunatelty, I didn’t have a case, so I used a sock – it was as if this was par for the course for David”, says Crane.

Some moments remain untouched, raw and immediate. Others are subtly altered, bending memory and reality together in the mix. “Not all of it, by any means, but enough that the title Reality Curated felt right. Ursa had this feeling of a space you didn’t want to leave. Every time you stepped inside, it was like being transported somewhere else. That’s the energy we wanted to capture in these recordings.”

Reality Curated: DMFAO Live at Ursa captures a residency where memory, music, and imagination collided. The result is a live album that doesn’t just document performances but reshapes them into something cinematic, immersive, and alive in its own dreamlike way.